Summit Church: Campus #StuMin Spotlight, North Raleigh

Today’s guest post comes from Jonathan Lenker, our North Raleigh Campus Student Pastor. Jonathan recently returned from a trip to Peru leading some of our students on a mission trip.

When we think about change in nature, so often we think about big cataclysmic events. Landslides. Tornadoes. Avalanches. Recently, one of those came closer to me than I would like.

Summit Students just took a team of 10 high school students to Peru on a mission trip. While we were there, one of the largest earthquakes in history (of that country) was recorded in the country right across the border from us. Many on our team got texts from concerned parents and loved ones. There was a rumor of a coming tsunami.

A tsunami is one of those big changes in nature like the ones listed above. But a tsunami doesn’t start looking like anything significant is going on. It looks like just a tremor down deep below the surface, but a tremor that affects the entire ocean in massive ways. If you were looking at the ocean from above, you might see just a tiny wave, hardly anything to be concerned about.

That is the way it seems God has been working in our students here at North Raleigh in RDU. Before we left on our trip my prayer was that God would call one student from our team to become a career missionary. I prayed that he would so grip their heart with a passion of their nations that they would give up every other dream they had for this new one given by God. And He did. One of our high school seniors talked to me as the trip was wrapping up, saying that God had been leading her for some time to consider giving her life to the mission field, particularly in a South American context. It was in a very casual conversation, almost incidental.

But I wonder the effect of that decision. What will it mean when she has conversations with friends and family about what she thinks is the most important thing she could give her life to? What will it mean in her ministry here as she prepares? What will it mean to the people of the South American country she ends up in? What did it mean for Lottie Moon, Adoniram Judson, or William Carey?

I don’t know what God will do in her life and through her ministry. A lot of things are up in the air. She could serve faithfully her entire life and never see a new believer in that country. Or not. Sometimes the biggest movements of God start in small, humble ways. One does not need only to think of what was wrapped in a manger to realize this. We do know this. The God who calls, sends. We have prayed that the Lord of the harvest would send forth laborers. And He is.